Local software developers are helping the Cajun Navy rescue Texans

Josh Gruben of Forest Hill, Louisiana, with his buddy Josh Mott of Colfax, Louisiana, were near Winnie, Texas, Aug. 27, 2017, on their way to Dickerson, Texas, pulling a boat, to rescue people trapped by Hurricane Harvey's flooding rains.
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The Louisiana Cajun Navy is turning to software created by a local tech entrepreneur to coordinate rescue missions in Texas.(Photo: cajunnavy.supportsystem.com)

Local software developer Peter Rotich and his team at Alexandria-based Enhancesoft thought they were going to have a slow Monday.

"And then the Cajun Navy called," said Karen Vincent, vice president operations and support.

A Lafayette man and contact for the Cajun Navy, a group of Louisiana volunteers in Texas rescuing people from Hurricane Harvey floodwaters, was reaching out with an idea.

What if an open source ticketing software created by Enhancesoft (and used in more than 200 countries) could be tweaked to help volunteers dispatched to Texas rescue more people?

Rotich and his team got to work almost immediately, adding new features to create just what the Cajun Navy needed, which is a more efficient way to track people in need of help and connect them with rescuers.

"Our software can collect the data of the person that is putting in the request for help, and they can use it to communicate who's in need and where they are," Vincent said.

It just took some adjustments.

"It's not necessarily made for a rescue mission," Rotich said. "It's something for customer support. So, it (was) just seeing what can we do to add features to make it more useful."

By midnight, a platform was live, ready to be used by dispatchers, who hopefully will be able to better track rescue missions.

Rotich is just glad to help.

He knows firsthand what kind of chaos unfolds in the aftermath of a natural disaster like the one Texas is experiencing. He was a New Orleans resident when Hurricane Katrina hit the city 12 years ago.

"In a situation like this, we're just happy to volunteer," he said. "This is exciting for a developer … if we can do anything to help in this kind of a situation."